Two gorgeous young girls living in the same building get killed just short days apart… and two other gorgeous young girls renting the same apartment will soon be threatened by the same maniac! Yippeee! A great 70s giallo! With personal favorite Edwige Fenech! Gaaargl! What great satisfaction to witness that kind of movie getting a great treatment on DVD.

So, we have your typical nutcase getting some kicks in polishing off great looking girls. Edwige’s character, Jennifer, thinks that it could be her ex, a cult leader that needs no great excuses to set up some elaborate mystical orgies. But could the crimes be the work of a local neighbor? The violin-playing teacher? His lesbian daughter? Some old witch that seems to be a fan of horror magazines? Or someone else hiding behind that strange entourage?

A typical product of the early seventies, this film can equally be seen as an awesome parade of then topical popular female fashion, as Edwige plays a model posing for men’s magazines. She’s introduced to us wearing very short shorts and displaying amazing body-painting on her perfect torso. Early on at that point, I decided that this production could be a masterpiece: there’s beautiful gals everywhere, including an exotic dancer that wrestles on stage with clients (!) and a mysterious and opportunistic lesbian. There’s a suspect that can’t stand the sight of blood, police inspectors on the verge of being completely useless (including one eating a sandwich in his car as a murder occurs close by!) and a choubidou music score close to perfection. On the trivia side, for an Italian movie of this genre, the killer doesn’t wear black gloves, but light brown ones! Also on the menu are a Brigitte Bardot poster and one from a Clint Eastwood movie. Did I mention the outrageously gay photographer?

At this moment in my life, where I can claim to have seen close to 6000 movies, one of the most memorable image in all these viewings is the sight of Edwige wearing a black suit and a large orange tie. I can be proud in seeing Citizen Kane close to 30 years ago and then decide that it was an important film, giving me the taste of discovering the Seventh Art. Is Orson Welles responsible for my movie passion? Who knows? But in all the discoveries I made along the way (and there are many of them, believe me), that shot of Edwige remains precious. The Case of the Bloody Iris was some years back only available in a The Giallo Collection Box, but now you can purchase it individually. Why don’t you go next weekend?

Here are the screen grabs featuring our heroine in all her legendary beauty:

Boy, does this 1966 movie brings back good memories, memories of a time when we used to set an alarm clock to bring us out of sleep and thusly enjoy late-night viewings of rare movies. Yes, this was before the advent of home video, a time when the enjoyment of watching films was very different and exciting than these days, where almost anything is available anytime.

I remember that Theatre of Death was quite a sexy film and was not disappointed when revisiting it again. This could be my favorite Christopher Lee performance, believe it or not, as he plays Phillipe Darvas, a pushy and rude theater director (but also quite brilliant). You see, Phillipe is pursuing his father’s tradition in staging plays consisting of macabre vignettes in pure Grand-Guignol fashion. Of course, Le Théâtre du Grand-Guignol was a real Parisian institution that soon branched into bizarre melodramas, crime stories and horror tales, with sometimes crude but still effective bloody special effects. It was open between 1897 and 1962, often changing owners but still focusing mainly in out-of-the-mainstream projects. A perverse sense of sexuality was more often than not added to the mix.

I’m still astonished that such a rich source has never been more an inspiration for horror movies. You can see some mention of Grand-Guignol in Karl Freund’s Mad Love from 1935 and even briefly in Neil Jordan’s Interview with the Vampire in 1994… but that’s pretty much it. Theatre of Death at least lets us show some background.

Briefly, the plot involves some mysterious murders where the victims have been drained of their blood. All this seems to be connected to Paris’ Le Théâtre de la Mort, where Darvas holds court over his submissive troupe. A police surgeon attracted to a featured actress will look for some clues.

So Christopher Lee (at some point wearing a flashy red sweater) doesn’t seems bored by the proceedings, like he used to be when he felt a project was beneath him. The tongue-lashing he gives an unfortunate actress is probably the key scene of the film and one of Mr. Lee’s best acted moment of his entire career. He will always remain a master at playing this kind of haughty, self-centered assholes. He even puts on some moves on a very fresh and fragile new comédienne, willing to manipulate her to his ends. He becomes our prime suspect in the gruesome killings.

Oddly, the star of the movie is another British actor in the cast who’ll eventually become a James Bond foe, mainly Julian Glover as the surgeon. He finds a little spot in his heart for gorgeous Lelia Goldoni and who can ever blame him? This is an actress that always fascinated me and I remember when I went many years ago to the Cinémathèque québécoise to catch her in John Cassavettes’ brilliant Shadows, where she played an African-American that easily passes for white. I’d love to eventually find some time right here for Lelia Goldoni, but I can’t find much bio information (what are her real ethnic origins, I wonder?). Seems that she started as a dancer and switched to acting by joining Cassavettes’ theatre group. She’s still working in films these days at the age of 71, and wasn’t she a very busy acting coach? Method acting, anyone? A very interesting career. She’s simply drop-dead beautiful here, with thick black hair and soulful eyes.

After a couple of bit parts, Jenny Till was making her real movie debut here. I was amused in seeing that the Internet Movie Database list her birth date as July 21, 1901!!! She must have been barely out of her early twenties in 1966! Her performance is quite strong here, but she mostly spent her career on British television productions. She had the potential to be another Judy Geeson or Susan George…

Director Samuel Gallu staged many of his shots with flair, with sometimes Mario Bava-like color lighting. Only lacking are the supposed horror scenes, where the murders are too often ended in freeze frames of the unfortunate victims’ dismayed faces. The rare glimpse of bloodletting looks like thick paint freely applied on a victim. But Theatre of Death is a more a macabre crime mystery tale than a real horror offering and must be enjoyed that way.

There are a couple of other gorgeous women on display, principally the ill-fated but stunning prostitute and a Black dancer (Lita Scott) that performs in a voodoo sacrifice vignette, while not wearing much on her amazing body (it kind of reminded me of the tiny costume that Debra Paget barely wears in Fritz Lang’s The Tiger of Eschnapur). This was quite a spicy sight for a 1966 production.

Another thing against the film is all that British cast playing French characters with French names while still displaying their original accents… quite odd, and we never believe one minute that this takes place in Paris. Still, I love the script’s original intentions, a departure from familiar Hammer films productions, still quite popular around the world at that time (but not the originators of this film).

Here are some screen grabs that I hope can be worthy of the presentation:

The appeal of Edwige Fenech is too often described as a mere visual pleasure (but what a pleasure!). As hard as it is to deny it, there’s also some vital observation that comes into consideration: the lady is a fine comedienne, without a doubt. She has played in mainly dumb comedies in the second half of her career, broad Italian farces with plenty of nudity and saucy misunderstandings. Let’s take one typical project, the 1975 production, Lover Boy (original title Grazie… nonna), which was available on DVD from Shoarma and seems to be sadly out-of-print.

This script would be very difficult to produce in these politically correct times: we have a single father with two teenage sons, this bunch not very inspired by the upcoming visit of the late granfather’s second wife. “Granny”, as she’s being called, is already perceived as a shrewish person, an old hag to be dealt with as callously as possible. The youngest son gets the job of picking up this unknown relative at the airport, who is finally revealed as a gorgeous twenty-something from Venezuela. So now, the three men of the family will progressively try to seduce Granny and gain her good favors. She herself is a good-natured person, aware of her own charms in this entourage, but never taking advantage from it.

Viewers of low-budget European comedies of the seventies will be in familiar territory here, especially handling productions coming from Italy. There are many broad characters (or should I say grotesque?) and situations coming straight out of vaudeville, as we can consider here Fra Domenico, a gluttonous monk.

Needless to say, this is not as serious as other quasi-incestuous motion pictures like Louis Malle’s Le souffle au cœur (Murmur of the Heart), Bertrand Blier’s Beau-père or even this classic from the golden age of adult features, Taboo, starring legendary adult performer Kay Parker. But oddly, Lover Boy, with all its lame jokes, handles its granny-gets-it-on-with-not-really-her-grandson-but-kind-of scene with surprising taste. Not a man in the audience won’t cheer this obvious but still satisfying plot point.

As I stated in the intro, Edwige’s gorgeous shoulders are all that carries the film, which is mainly plagued by bad sitcom situations. Among it all, we can perceive her own subtle talent, as her character here seems like the only one who’s not an easy caricature or exaggeration.

The Shoarma DVD is obviously a copy of a badly-dubbed English VHS, with surprising strong colors from the too-often lousy image. There are no subtitled options, so you will suffer through awkward line delivery. Even then, there’s great respect for Edwige here, with an attractive photo gallery (how could it be not attractive, considering its subject?), fascinating poster gallery (lots of painting in these mid-seventies posters), a bio that clarifies that Edwige was born in Algeria from a French mother and Tunisian father, and two interviews transcripts, one from 1982 and the other from 2000, that finally gets us inside the mind of one of our favorite cult actress.

The mystery of Edwige’s origins deepens, as I recently came across a bio on the Nanarland website stating that her mom was from Italo-Spanish roots and her dad Czech-English!

Three interesting tidbits: legendary rock group Goglin supplies the soundtrack (they who are most famous for the collaboration on Dario Argento movies and horrific Italian fantasies) and director Marino Girolami has also directed Dr. Butcher M.D.! Lastly, child actor Giusva Fioravanti (whose last film this was) would soon become a terrorist, busy in these troubled political times in Italy and condemned for the murder of policemen.

At least, Lover Boy has the benefit of showing us one of the best use of the Pisa Tower I have seen in motion pictures. No joke! Of course, the many views of Edwige’s anatomy are as welcome.

2004 (Hana to hebi)

Based on Dan Oniroku’s cult novel, here’s a tale that saw a popular adaptation in 1974 starring the legendary Naomi Tani, Nikkatsu Studio’s top S&M queen and a person that I will talk about more in the future. This recent version made the art-house circuit and got mostly favorable reviews. Not for timid souls, the story involves a businessman who chooses to offer his wife as a debt payment to some elderly Yakuza kingpin. The unfortunate woman, a dancing celebrity, will have to endure humiliating S&M sessions under the watchful eyes of a masked audience into what seems to be some sort of depraved coliseum.

Even with sometimes harsh punishment scenes, this remains a fascinating viewing experience, mostly for the complex relationships between the main characters and the convincing performances from its lead stars. And of course, there’s an ending that can only make you evalute your understanding of the whole plot all over. The visual images are simply astounding in their beauty.

Without gorgeous Aya Sugimoto’s intense acting skills in the main role of Shizuko, all this would have fallen apart. Oddly, her body, beautiful as it is, is not the same type that was mostly favored in Japanese bondage movies of the seventies, for example (which preferred more fleshy curves, resulting in seemingly more harsh rope marks). But she indeed looks like a dancing celebrity. In fact, she was ready to endure anything for just the privilege of working with famed director Takashi Ishii. And endure she did, as these scenes required no body double work.

I was curiously more impressed by the presence of Misaki Mori as Kyoko, Shizuko’s bodyguard, who is also innocently trapped in this hellish underground performance club. As a female hard cookie, she conjures toughness and despair with equal skill. I will keep my eyes open for these two excellent actresses and also on the sequel, Flower & Snake II.